Philosophical Realism's Mind-Independence is Absurd

[Darkneos]

I don't think any of this stuff warrants worry, or anxiety, or fear. Physics is just us poking and prodding and probing into reality, to find out what we can about it. Whether physics works one way, or another way, doesn't matter in the sense that it seems to matter to you.

But, let me take a step back and just ask you, what would you be worried about? What scares you? Is it just the fact that you don't understand it that scares you, or is there some way physics might work that you think would be very undesirable for some reason?

I'm scared that there might be something about reality and other people not existing, and that would mean that if I care about other people it would be pointless because they are not real. Which means there would be no point in trying to help other people out either through volunteering, medical stuff, things like that, I can't make the world better or help others because it's not real.

Or if everything has already happened already then there would be no choice to be made because it's already happened and the world is just playing out like a movie and there's nothing you can do about it.

Or if there is no free will then that would mean I can't do anything about stuff because it's all based on factors that I have no control over.

The list goes on but suffice to say it would impact how I feel about other people and how I would treat them, and I don't want to go down the line of thinking others aren't real and being monstrous to them. I won't.

The first paragraph isn't anything qm , or any other physics, is saying.

The other stuff, however, is up for debate about what the reality of the situation is, but I have some patterns of thought with which I deal with questions of determinism. I don't think that, if you found out tomorrow that you live in a deterministic universe, that that should make you sad or disappointed or anything (especially not the many worlds variety of determinism, which has a little sneaky kind of randomness to it). Determinism isn't more constraining of our will than randomness would be. I can go into detail if that's desired.

I did wonder how people thought determinism wasn't the chain I think it is.

[Flannel Jesus]

I'm scared that there might be something about reality and other people not existing, and that would mean that if I care about other people it would be pointless because they are not real. Which means there would be no point in trying to help other people out either through volunteering, medical stuff, things like that, I can't make the world better or help others because it's not real.

Or if everything has already happened already then there would be no choice to be made because it's already happened and the world is just playing out like a movie and there's nothing you can do about it.

Or if there is no free will then that would mean I can't do anything about stuff because it's all based on factors that I have no control over.

The list goes on but suffice to say it would impact how I feel about other people and how I would treat them, and I don't want to go down the line of thinking others aren't real and being monstrous to them. I won't.

The first paragraph isn't anything qm , or any other physics, is saying.

The other stuff, however, is up for debate about what the reality of the situation is, but I have some patterns of thought with which I deal with questions of determinism. I don't think that, if you found out tomorrow that you live in a deterministic universe, that that should make you sad or disappointed or anything (especially not the many worlds variety of determinism, which has a little sneaky kind of randomness to it). Determinism isn't more constraining of our will than randomness would be. I can go into detail if that's desired.

I did wonder how people thought determinism wasn't the chain I think it is.

Sean Carroll himself talks about compatibilism at length. I'm not sure I would frame it exactly the same way he does, but we both agree that determinism, if it is the case (which isn't a guarantee by any means, for the record), it doesn't take anything away we might have had.

I'm not sure if this is the best place to go into my thoughts on this or if we should talk in another thread. I'll let you decide.

[Darkneos]

The first paragraph isn't anything qm , or any other physics, is saying.

The other stuff, however, is up for debate about what the reality of the situation is, but I have some patterns of thought with which I deal with questions of determinism. I don't think that, if you found out tomorrow that you live in a deterministic universe, that that should make you sad or disappointed or anything (especially not the many worlds variety of determinism, which has a little sneaky kind of randomness to it). Determinism isn't more constraining of our will than randomness would be. I can go into detail if that's desired.

I did wonder how people thought determinism wasn't the chain I think it is.

Sean Carroll himself talks about compatibilism at length. I'm not sure I would frame it exactly the same way he does, but we both agree that determinism, if it is the case (which isn't a guarantee by any means, for the record), it doesn't take anything away we might have had.

I'm not sure if this is the best place to go into my thoughts on this or if we should talk in another thread. I'll let you decide.

Thread could be for whatever, seems like VA is thoroughly beaten now.

[Darkneos]

I still can't get that 10 billion years ago everything that happened has already happened bit.

I know that Sean showed how that's not true, but I just can't get it out of my head. It keeps coming back.

Even Atla admitting they don't believe in it still hasn't helped, I don't know what to do.

[Veritas Aequitas]

I did wonder how people thought determinism wasn't the chain I think it is.

Sean Carroll himself talks about compatibilism at length. I'm not sure I would frame it exactly the same way he does, but we both agree that determinism, if it is the case (which isn't a guarantee by any means, for the record), it doesn't take anything away we might have had.

I'm not sure if this is the best place to go into my thoughts on this or if we should talk in another thread. I'll let you decide.

Thread could be for whatever, seems like VA is thoroughly beaten now.

How? what is your argument to support your claim?

Sean Carroll is a philosophical realist where his ultimate claim of reality is grounded on psychology rather than epistemology.
"Philosophical Realism" is an Evolutionary Default.
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=39975

[Darkneos]

Sean Carroll himself talks about compatibilism at length. I'm not sure I would frame it exactly the same way he does, but we both agree that determinism, if it is the case (which isn't a guarantee by any means, for the record), it doesn't take anything away we might have had.

I'm not sure if this is the best place to go into my thoughts on this or if we should talk in another thread. I'll let you decide.

Thread could be for whatever, seems like VA is thoroughly beaten now.

How? what is your argument to support your claim?

Sean Carroll is a philosophical realist where his ultimate claim of reality is grounded on psychology rather than epistemology.
"Philosophical Realism" is an Evolutionary Default.
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=39975

Quoting your own threads isn't proof. It's a house of mirrors reflecting bad arguments and data.

[Atla]

"how" is a question I don't have the answer to. In the case of single universe interpretations, "how" do the particles know that they're supposed to be correlated? How do they call each other from across space and time, defying relativity?

I don't know how these entanglement spheres work, but I do think they seem like a candidate for an explanation of what's really happening.

My "favourite" idea is that the entire universal wavefunction got entangled at the Big Bang, and after that we just have simple determisnim. So it's not like we create entangled pairs embedded in a non-entangled environment, but instead everything is entangled, and we can find, track, cognize some of that entanglement. Until we lose sight of it, but entanglement is never actually destroyed, we just can't track it anymore when it gets leaked to the environment too much.

Could entanglement even work in a non-entangled environment? Or does entanglement implicitly mean that the environment also must be entangled, everything else has to be at the right place too for it to work? (Don't know what the answer is, I merely suspect the latter.)

Universal entanglement is also neat because imo it automatically solves the information paradox.

[Flannel Jesus]

How do you personally conceptualise entanglement to begin with? In it's most simple form? What does it mean to you for things to be entangled?

[Atla]

How do you personally conceptualise entanglement to begin with? In it's most simple form? What does it mean to you for things to be entangled?

Physical correlation of things that ignores Einsteinian spacetime.

[Flannel Jesus]

My "favourite" idea is that the entire universal wavefunction got entangled at the Big Bang, and after that we just have simple determisnim. So it's not like we create entangled pairs embedded in a non-entangled environment, but instead everything is entangled, and we can find, track, cognize some of that entanglement. Until we lose sight of it, but entanglement is never actually destroyed, we just can't track it anymore when it gets leaked to the environment too much.

Could entanglement even work in a non-entangled environment? Or does entanglement implicitly mean that the environment also must be entangled, everything else has to be at the right place too for it to work? (Don't know what the answer is, I merely suspect the latter.)

Universal entanglement is also neat because imo it automatically solves the information paradox.

Quantum entanglement is often sort of mischaracterized as this bizarre and rare thing that people have to create very specific apparatuses to create, but in fact, entanglement is the norm. Entanglement is how you interact with things. Entanglement is how you see things. Any time one thing's state is reacting to another thing's state, anywhere in the universe, entanglement is happening. Even if I say I'm sad and that makes you sad, that's entanglement.

The problem though with saying everything is entangled is, I think, that entanglement breaks down pretty fast for individual particles. If you have an entangled particle pair, as soon as they interact with anything, that previous entanglement they had is now gone. If you were to measure the spin of an entangled pair, their spins would be correlated for the first measurement, but it would be completely gone if you try to measure it again.

So there's a sense in which everything is entangled, but also a sense in which entanglement is very temporary and short lived.

What do you mean by non entangled environment by the way? Do you have a specific situation or experiment in mind? I'm not sure I understand that concept.

[Atla]

My "favourite" idea is that the entire universal wavefunction got entangled at the Big Bang, and after that we just have simple determisnim. So it's not like we create entangled pairs embedded in a non-entangled environment, but instead everything is entangled, and we can find, track, cognize some of that entanglement. Until we lose sight of it, but entanglement is never actually destroyed, we just can't track it anymore when it gets leaked to the environment too much.

Could entanglement even work in a non-entangled environment? Or does entanglement implicitly mean that the environment also must be entangled, everything else has to be at the right place too for it to work? (Don't know what the answer is, I merely suspect the latter.)

Universal entanglement is also neat because imo it automatically solves the information paradox.

Quantum entanglement is often sort of mischaracterized as this bizarre and rare thing that people have to create very specific apparatuses to create, but in fact, entanglement is the norm. Entanglement is how you interact with things. Entanglement is how you see things. Any time one thing's state is reacting to another thing's state, anywhere in the universe, entanglement is happening. Even if I say I'm sad and that makes you sad, that's entanglement.

The problem though with saying everything is entangled is, I think, that entanglement breaks down pretty fast for individual particles. If you have an entangled particle pair, as soon as they interact with anything, that previous entanglement they had is now gone. If you were to measure the spin of an entangled pair, their spins would be correlated for the first measurement, but it would be completely gone if you try to measure it again.

So there's a sense in which everything is entangled, but also a sense in which entanglement is very temporary and short lived.

What do you mean by non entangled environment by the way? Do you have a specific situation or experiment in mind? I'm not sure I understand that concept.

I believe you are conflating the two different entanglements of QM. It's a bit unfortunate that they have the same name.

The "other" entanglement is what you talk about and Carroll usually talks about: entanglement with the environemnt, or two quantum systems entangling with each other. That's basically just "systems" interacting with each other.

[Flannel Jesus]

I don't think I understand what you're saying the two different things are.

[Atla]

I don't think I understand what you're saying the two different things are.

By I entanglement I was talking about Einstein's "spooky action at a distance". Say we have two entangled quantum coins that keep spinning. I bring one to the Andromeda galaxy, you keep yours here on Earth. Then in the Andromeda galaxy, I stop mine from spinning and it lands heads. At that exact "moment", yours lands tails. But the transmission I sent you from the Andromeda galaxy about my coin being heads so yours should be tails, will only arrive 2.5 million years later.

[Flannel Jesus]

I don't believe I'm conflating them, I believe they literally are the same thing, the same quantum process.

[Atla]

I don't believe I'm conflating them, I believe they literally are the same thing, the same quantum process.

Are you saying then that interactions are overwriting previous entanglements with new entanglements?